It was clear after our first few offensive possessions that points were going to be hard to come by. I give Liberty credit for that. We were playing good D as well until a quick run just past the mid point of the first half put Liberty up big. Caldwell came in and got burnt for 8 points in about a minute on an 8-0 run. I’m not really picking on him as he didn’t play terrible defense but that’s just the way it fell.
We put together a 6-0 run to end the half that made things respectable because it was getting ugly. But I was thinking at the half that we dhave too much talent to not make a run at it.
Second half started and we continued to chip away. Mostly all Fields and Jones. There was a point where we locked in on defense to where they could hardly get off a shot on a few possessions. I believe we would have won the game if Djonkam didn’t get in foul trouble. Anyway, we were a play or way from getting it to one possession a couple times and really putting pressure on them.
Liberty has to be the most experienced team in the country. It seems like those guys have been there for 10 years. And they are deep. Playing them first game was gonna be tough. And even with a slow, terrible start, we made them sweat a bit.
Quinton Morton-Robertson had a pretty good game IMO. He did miss some threes badly that would have put us within striking distance, but it was his first game. What I was impressed with is he was in for a lot of that stretch in the second half when the defense was shut down. It was obvious he has some offensive skills but if he can play defense like that, he’ll have a huge impact this year. If Fields or Jones were to get in foul trouble, that’d be huge.
Eke looked like he might have a few moves down low but it was shut down by Liberty. He’ll have a much easier time come conference play.
Djonkam played very good defense on the inside. Didn’t get to see much from him on offense. But he brings size and defense for sure.
Green, Caldwell and M Jones seemed to struggle a bit. But first game against a good team. No need to write them off.
We did play 12 guys, that won’t continue. But it’ll be interesting to see who the 8 or so are.
The biggest problem was being able to generate offense that doesn’t come from Jones and Fields. Hicks will be fine, and QMR is gonna score some. We gotta find someone downlow who can score. Holland has some skills down there too, I think liberty and their defensive set had a lot to do with it. We’ll have a good year. We gotta get a big OOC win. This would have been one.